Poles mourn Gdansk mayor´s fatal stabbing

Flags flew at half-staff and people signed condolence books at municipal buildings across Poland as the nation mourned the stabbing death of the mayor of port city Gdansk.

In Gdansk, people placed flowers and candles and signed a condolence book at the town hall, where mayor Pawel Adamowicz had his office since he was first elected in 1998.

There has been an outpouring of grief on the streets of Gdansk (AP Photo/Wojciech Strozyk)

In the capital Warsaw, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and members of his cabinet stood for a moment of silence in Mr Adamowicz’s honour before their weekly meeting.

Meanwhile, interior minister Joachim Brudzinski said police have arrested three people who had called for more killings following the assassination of Mr Adamowicz, who died on Monday after being stabbed during a charity event.

Mr Brudzinski described those arrested as internet trolls and “unbalanced”.

The assailant stabbed Mr Adamowicz three times in the heart and abdomen while on stage during a charity event on Sunday evening.

Pawel Adamowicz was stabbed three times (Carmen Jaspersen/dpa via AP)

He then told a crowd of thousands he did it in revenge against the opposition Civic Platform party, which was in power when he was imprisoned in 2013 for bank robberies.

Mr Adamowicz was a long-time member of Civic Platform but left it in 2015.

Officials have identified the assailant as 27-year-old Stefan W from Gdansk who left prison in December after serving more than five years for bank robberies. Justice officials said he needed psychiatric examination and that a psychiatrist assisted at his questioning on Monday.

The killing plunged the politically divided country into shock and grief and brought Poles into the streets for solemn vigils on Monday night.

It also threatened to exacerbate a tense political situation in the country, with Poles bitterly divided between supporters of the ruling right-wing party Law and Justice and critics who accuse it of creating a climate of intolerance and eroding democratic standards. They have primarily focused their criticism on the party’s reshaping of the judicial system and its use of public media as a political tool.

Some Poles put some of the blame for the assassination on the right-wing ruling Law and Justice party, which has often employed harsh language to denounce its critics, among them Mr Adamowicz.

Government officials and some independent observers called for caution, noting the assailant’s criminal record and suspected psychiatric problems.